


my luck is so bad it can only get better

by jonphaedrus



Series: i cannot seem to find my way home tonight [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: M/M, May/December Relationship, Past Duessel/Vigarde, Past Knoll/Lyon, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, second love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 01:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13353567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: It was grey the day they buried Lyon.And then Knoll went home.





	my luck is so bad it can only get better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lumeha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumeha/gifts).



> HAPPY NAGAMASSSSS LUMEHA!
> 
> i saw knoll/duessel and then the idea of it came up behind me bludgeoned me into unconsciousness and dragged my body into a back alley. its such good content. there is nothing about this i dont love. how had i never considered it before? i was blind and a fool.
> 
> for the purposes of this fic, knolls supports with duessel and lyon are both canon and duessels support with amelia is also canon
> 
> this is still probably not canon compliant because its been a few years since i last reread fe8 but big thanks to [raphi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphiael) for helping canon compliance check it

It was grey the day they buried Lyon.

And then Knoll went home.

 

 

He was halfway back to the remains of Grado when there were hoofbeats behind him. Not galloping, but not a slow walk either. Two horses, trying to catch him, not to overtake him. Knoll turned, looking over his shoulder, and his eyes widened when he saw—

Amelia, waving at him. “Hey! Hey, Knoll!” She was grinning. “Wait up!” Beside her, half-smiling, was Duessel. “We’re coming with you!”

Knoll felt something that had been dead inside him start to warm, a little bit. He slowed his own horse and waited as Amelia cantered up, laughing, Duessel just behind her. He nodded to Knoll. “Hello, friend,” he said, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. “Returning to the capital?”

It was still so strange to have Duessel call him _friend_. Not six months ago he would have thought of the man as an annoyance, not a boon. Knoll nodded. “There is much to do in Grado. The catastrophe—“

“It won’t get any worse before we get there.” Duessel pointed out, not wrongly. The worst of the damage was done, and their arrival would only hasten reconstruction. “But you will not be alone rebuilding.” He patted his saddlebag. “From Eirika and Ephraim of Renais and Innes and Tana of Frelia, letters of promise of aid. Ephraim and Eirika themselves will come to Grado as soon as they possibly can. Once the peace treaties are done, they intend to write treaties of alliance in preparation for aid, reparation, and refugee housing over the borders until villages are rebuilt. Joshua and L’Arachel believe they can get Jehanna and Rausten, as soon as they have a chance to work at home, and who knows about Carcino, but if the rest of Magvel is on Grado’s side, I believe that they will bend as well.”

For the first time since he had covered Lyon’s dirty, bloody face with his hood, Knoll found himself smiling, just a little. Trust Duessel to think one step further ahead; like a good tactician, his mind was always on the next move.

“This,” he said at last, “Is good news indeed. Thank you. It is good to...have someone on my side.”

“There are a lot of people on _our_ side,” Duessel corrected him, nudging his horse away from Knoll’s, his stallion butting heads with Knoll’s mare perhaps hopefully, “We don’t need to be worried in the same way. Not any more. And we still have Cormag and Natasha on their way to the capital as well. The last thing you need to do is think you are _alone_.”

Knoll had always been good at thinking of the absolute worst-case scenarios. It had been part of what had drawn him to Lyon to begin with; they were both able to see disaster wherever they turned. It had once bothered him about Duessel, in the time before. How could he be so realistic, and yet, look towards the bright side? A terrible catastrophe would come, one Grado could not recover from. But he looked at it not as an enemy to be defeated, or the end of the world, but as something that they would strategize around.

But now, he could understand the appeal. Looking toward the future as something not of horror, but as a problem that might not have a solution, but could be circumvented.

Knoll had changed a lot, in the last few months.

He smiled, hid it in his hood. “And I am glad for it,” he said at last.

 

 

They parted three days later, Amelia and Duessel riding off into the Grado countryside to reunite the young woman with her mother. They promised to meet him at the capital soon enough, and he found there was plenty waiting for him to deal with upon his return. The government was in a shambles—Vigarde’s madness had destroyed the majority of the nobility, the army was practically a ruin with all but one of its generals and the majority of its high-ranking officers dead, the merchants were in chaos and no money was coming in, the treasury was all-but-empty, and Knoll’s fellow scholars had all been executed, their bodies left to rot in their prison cells.

The earthquake had destroyed what infrastructure hadn’t been defunded, roads were broken, streams running new riverbeds, wells dry. Almost a third of the country was gone, bodies being fished out of rivers. The coastline had been ravaged by a tsunami, boats shattered to matchsticks on the rocks, cliffs where once were beaches. There was no food. There were bodies decaying in the hills and forests. Chaos was filling every corner of the empire.

It was, in short, an absolute fucking disaster.

Knoll took the reins as gently as he could. There was no imperial family left, except perhaps a few cousins, but it would take some time to sort out the issues of succession. If they were _ever_ sorted.

For understandable reasons, no heirs chose to came forward. Even those Knoll knew were, in fact, next in line for the throne.

Who would want to, after all? What was there left in Grado to be Emperor of?

Instead, Knoll was left with a scattered remnants of a government. Cormag arrived soon enough, gruff and serious, and took a promotion to be one of the new Imperial Three without batting an eyelid, taking on his fallen brother’s mantle. He went off to the countryside to round up the rest of the missing army, reaching out to their surrounding neighbors to find deserters, lost swordsmen, or simply forgotten garrisons. Duessel and Amelia arrived right afterward, falling naturally into the remaining two spots for Generals, Duesel already straightening the remaining army while Amelia went to recruit anyone who would volunteer. They needed to get work to everyone they could, and manpower was _essential_ for rebuilding roads, aqueducts, cities.

Natasha (accompanied by Moulder, L’Arachel, and the Royal Twins of Renais) arrived some two weeks afterward, bringing with them a caravan of much-needed supplies and _money_. Natasha immediately gathered up the remnants of the Imperial Bisopric and got the hospitals open, startling her former coworkers with the sturdy, effective pragmatic changes that war had wrought on her personality.

“No reparations,” Eirika said. “At least from Renais and Rausten, for the present. Ephraim may ask for something in a decade or so. Frelia’s still deciding, but Tana makes a pretty succinct argument that you all have nothing you can give, except Imperial treasures.” She paused, added, “And Ephraim is working on Innes.”

“And gladly should I give up those treasures for aid. We owe you and your brother a great debt, Lady Eirika.” Knoll bowed his head to her. “One we shall like as not never repay.” He had not expected to be asked directly. To be the one who decided on the remaining Imperial treasures. But here he was. And here he did.

Knoll liquidated them, selling them through L’Arachel to Rausten, and gave what could be spared to Frelia and Renais. The rest slid straight through his fingers, into the Imperial coffers, and was swallowed up by the blood-soaked lands of Grado.

Knoll, in his role as Lyon’s right-hand and most trusted Imperial Mage, was the highest ranked civilian officer in Grado. Duessel, already the seniormost of the Imperial Generals, was now the highest ranked military officer in Grado. It was strange, to work out of the shadows, but Knoll had always had a head for politics. It made sense. Politics was not so unlike dark magic. It involved battling terrifying forces that could chew him up and spit him out at any given moment, politicians were basically demons but (fortunately) mortal, when he said one thing he meant four others, and it gave him a headache.

So he was very good at it.

And in this way, what with one thing and another, two years passed.

 

 

No claimant to the throne ever surfaced. Knoll tried. He _tried_. He cajoled, pleaded, but nobody came forward. Even those he had spoken to directly had not only denied their claimant to the throne, they had eschewed it. Made it someone else’s problem. Instead they built a House of Lords out of the remaining nobility and a few merchants who had been elevated to such status, a seat each for the Senior Imperial General and the Senior Imperial Advisor, Knoll’s new title.

And, between them, the empty throne. Lyon’s ghost sat over their shoulder, watching them, waiting for them. To see what they would do with his legacy.

In the past two years since Lyon’s death, Knoll had shared perhaps one day in every three at Duessel’s side. He had grown to regard the other man not just as perhaps the best tactical mind of their age, but too as a friend. Nobody could ever fill the hole that Lyon had left upon his death, but Duessel filled something else instead. Not a brother—a trusted companion.

So after one particularly exhausting day, it was unsurprising that Duessel stopped him, a hand on his elbow, stilling him.

“You’re looking wan,” Duessel said. “Moreso than usual.” Knoll half-flashed a smile to the other man at that. He usually looked wan. He never got much sun. He had finally admitted his hood and Mage uniform was no longer practical, given he was now effectively the leader of a newly reunited Grado, but he still rarely left the castle and attached keeps. When he did, it was late at night, to study the stars and try to find some future answers. Old habits died hard. “Come to dinner with Amelia and I. Melina is cooking.”

Melina was a _very_ good cook.

“I already have too much to do this evening, and a stargazing with the Imperial Mages. Thank you, Duessel. But I cannot.”

“That,” Duessel said, raising his eyebrows, now streaked more with grey than they had been when he and Knoll had met ten years previously, “Was _not_ a request, Knoll. I still have seniority over you, and even if I didn’t, I can pick you up and drag you. Come to dinner. Eat something. Stop worrying for at least an hour or two, and afterward, I will deal with your most pressing responsibilities so you can go to your stargazing.”

He squeezed Knoll’s shoulder, and the exhaustion that hung on them all like a pall cracked at that simple human touch. “Please, Knoll.” He shut his eyes, sighed.

“Very well. Lead on, Obsidian.”

 

 

Duessel was just always _there_. Knoll’s courtship of Lyon was complex and tumultuous, strained and vocal and _lush_ ; it was half physical and intellectual lust and half pure simple _fascination_ in one another. Knoll had never met someone like him, anyone with whom he could converse on the same level, before Lyon. Lyon was painfully detached, separated from his own love, and in desperate need of companionship. It was more complex than any simple love affair, and tied up in vassal feelings and the chaos of the world ending and Vigarde’s death and catastrophe and so much more.

The sex was good, though. And Knoll had cared for him deeply, despite his own initial reservations. More deeply, perhaps, than he ought, given that he had always known Lyon was not truly his.

And Duessel was not like that at all. Duessel was a warm hand on his elbow, a calm voice in Lords and council meetings, an even head dealing with a fractious and difficult military, half of it still loyal to dead Generals. He had been a General under Vigarde and served even his father in rank and file before, and had a memory for Grado’s history and needs that nobody else remaining _did_. Duessel was a reminder to eat and go to bed at regular times, and he would come to Knoll’s room on early mornings, make sure he was awake after late nights, walk beside him to early meetings.

 

 

Five years after Lyon’s death, official peace talks were at last scheduled, to be held in Renais. Duessel and Knoll went together with two representatives from the House of Lords as a whole, one noble and one merchant, Amelia and Cormag remaining in Grado. Natasha came along, going to go visit her friends and trade new methods of healing with her fellow clerics outside of the country, leaving the New Imperial Hospital in the hands of her deputies. On the ride back over the border, surrounded by many of the friends whom he had ridden all around the world with, his first time out of the country since the end of the war, Knoll finally got to look at the world they were rebuilding.

It wasn’t the Grado he remembered from his childhood. It wasn’t even quite the Grado that Lyon had talked of—a hotbed of innovation and intelligentsia it was not, thriving and lush were still far from subsistence. But it _was_ alive, and soldiering on despite that. Roads had been rebuilt. Infrastructure worked. People were happy and trusted their government.

“It has changed so much,” Knoll said, as he and Duessel rode side-by-side. “And yet, not at all.”

“That’s the way of these things,” Duessel said. “The world changes, but it doesn’t. You wake up one morning and the things you took for granted are long gone—and the things you expected to change remain stagnant, even when it doesn’t make sense.” He looked over at Knoll. “Thinking of what Lyon would want again?” Duessel had, through the last few years, counseled him to not rely so tightly to Lyon’s wishes. To fail his dreams was inevitable. It was better to simply try.

Knoll nodded. “We will get there,” he said at last. “Someday. I can see the first buds blooming even now. I only hope we can get that far, that the world remains out of flux.” Already they were creating failsafes. They were building nets, catch-alls that would protect Grado. Treaties. Trade agreements. Alliances. Escape routes. _Never again_ would Grado be caught off-guard.

“Not in my lifetime,” Duessel agreed, happily enough, and Knoll felt something tighten in his chest. How old was Duessel now—sixty? At least. “And probably not in yours. But perhaps in Amelia’s, or her daughter’s lifetime. But that’s the future, my friend. You die and hope the next generation can sort it all out.”

Knoll shook his head, snorted. “How do you know Amelia will have a daughter?”

“I always wanted a granddaughter,” Duessel replied, grinning. “A sweet girl, to coo over in my dotage.”

“You’re some way from that now still.” Duessel had but some two months since taken the first prize in a joust of the entire Grado army, rank and file up to General. Even should he have thought otherwise, he remained a man active as if ten years younger than his true age.

“Closer,” Duessel said. “Closer than any of us like to think.”

Knoll felt a twinge of unease. Sadness. Grey skies.

“Duessel, why did you never marry?” He asked it without meaning to, and Duessel looked surprised, glanced toward him. “You love Amelia like she was your own daughter, and speak of grandchildren, and yet—“

“Ah,” Duessel said. He cleared his throat, awkwardly. “I thought you knew.” Knoll waited, heart in his throat. The General plucked at his horse’s reins, sighed, his shoulders slumping. “It was something of an open secret, Vigarde and I. At least, before those last few years—we grew apart, toward the end of his life. Even before we learned the full truth of his illness, I had suspected...well. We met when I was still a raw recruit, serving as a part of his honor guard, and were together until he...” Died, of course.

“Oh,” Knoll said, and it all slotted together.

“I would have thought Lyon had told you,” Duessel said, at last, into their silence. Knoll shook his head.

“We...rarely spoke of his childhood, or of his father. At least, in terms of as his father, and not as the emperor.” Knoll stared at his hands. “Then I assume that you know that Lyon and I—“

“Of course,” Duessel’s voice was so soft that he had to strain to hear it. “Any fool could see it, the way you looked at him. The same way I looked at Vigarde. The same way Lyon looked at Ephraim.” Knoll grinned, but it was humorless. It _hurt_ , a twist to his lips, a clench in his chest. “I knew from the first time I saw you two together. If it hadn’t happened, it would. And now I know it did.”

“Life is never easy, is it?” Knoll asked. It stood in for so much else he wanted to say. It meant a great deal—two men, left behind by the men they had loved to clean up the mess their absence had made.

“No,” Duessel agreed. “But that is what makes it life.”

 

 

“I’m sorry,” Eirika told them upon their arrival. “There are too many people, and half the castle is still in ruins. I think Seth’s going to lose his mind trying to sort everyone, so you two are sharing a room. I hope that’s not a problem?”

Knoll looked to Duessel, who shrugged. “I’m a soldier, Lady Eirika,” he told her, not unkindly. “I’ll happily sleep in the stables if I must. No, I’ve no issue.”

“Nor I,” Knoll reassured her. “Please, Lady Eirika. You’ve done so much for us already. Don’t feel pressured to go out of your way for our lodgings.”

“Thank goodness,” she said, squeezing both their shoulders. “You two are saints, honestly. I mean it. You’ll have dinner with Ephraim and I and the Frelian contingent. Tana has a _lot_ of questions about Cormag. L’Arachel will be there, too.”

Knoll looked at Duessel, and saw the other man was pretending to not be smiling. Knoll caught his eye, cocked an eyebrow. Duessel nodded; of _course_ L’Arachel was there.

“We would be honored,” Knoll said, and meant it. He _meant_ it, he wanted to see these friends, who had been at his side through the agony of the worst period of his life. Even now that years and distance separated them, there were ties that bound them tighter than blood. Duessel had been right, five years before—there _were_ people in their corner. People who would stand up for them, and stay by their sides.

Lyon had done that. Lyon had helped make that happen.

After dinner, one that left Knoll full body and soul, they returned to the small room they had been given. It was a little too small for two men, two beds, and all Duessel’s armor, but they managed, somehow. It was only for a few weeks, after all. Knoll sat on his bed, carefully peering through the correspondence that had arrived for them with a fast-moving merchant caravan, listened to Duessel in the ensuite, trimming his beard.

“Knoll,” Duessel said, and Knoll looked up.

Duessel stood there, in only his breeches. His grey hair was all over his face, loose and mussed at the end of the day, his tanned skin and wide chest scattered with scars. Knoll stared at one particular one, that had to be from the war—it was just over the side of his right pectoral, into his armpit, short. Like a thrust. Probably from a spear, through a chink in his armor. He couldn’t stop staring at it, at the tantalizing hint of hair under his arm, the pale line it made just above the dusky brown of his nipple.

“Could you repeat that?” Knoll asked, his tongue feeling leaden in his mouth.

“I’m finished, if you need to shave,” Duessel said. Knoll nodded. He was still staring, and he knew it. Duessel snorted with laughter, and lifted his arm, revealing the full scar. It had to have been a deep injury, into his rotator cuff and the ligaments of his shoulder, wrapping several inches around the side of his chest.

“It healed up fairly nicely—Selena gave it to me.”

“Selena didn’t use blades,” Knoll said. Duessel shrugged. Slightly, lowered his arm.

“She didn’t, but she took any opportunity she had to kill me when ordered. She was a stubborn woman. She picked up a fallen pike and her aim was damn well true. Natasha and L’Arachel both exhausted themselves saving my arm, and even then, it’s never been quite the same.” He rolled his arm, winced. “If nothing else will pull me from the field, this will. At my age—“

“You are not that old,” Knoll interjected.

“Sixty-three in a few months is not _young_ , Knoll.” He went to his bed, sat down, scrubbed the back of his neck. “I’d never meant to fight this long,” he said, softly. “I’d always meant to retire. Go live out my dotage in the countryside.”

“I think everyone did,” Knoll replied, and came over, hesitated just before him. “I did study as a priest, for a time. If it is truly bothering you so much, I perhaps can alleviate the pain?” Duessel looked up at him. Paused. “If you would like.”

“Sure,” he finally spoke, turned to give Knoll easy access. Knoll knelt before him, the cool stone of the Renais flagstones a shock against his knees even through his robes, and Duessel lifted his arm. Knoll set his hands against the scar, fingers probing against it to assess the damage. He could feel the underlying weakness in Duessel’s ligaments, his bone slightly out of alignment, and he dug his thumbs into the mark, massaging up and in. There was a very slight pop, and Duessel breathed out an exhausted sigh.

“Oh,” he said. “Hell.” He laughed, pained. “How long was it like that?” Knoll hummed, a non-answer, and kept working. He could feel the muscle loosening under his hands, Duessel’s shoulders relaxing. Knoll moved up around his arm, sitting next to him on the bed, working on his arm and shoulder until he could move it with ease again.

They were almost the exact same height when Duessel was out of armor, Knoll found. Duessel’s hair was almost completely grey, creeping down into his beard, spreading even to the hair on his chest an arms. His skin was warm; scarred. “Anywhere else?” Knoll asked, unable to look away from Duessel’s eyes. They were softening at the edges as he got jowly, and it made him look a little vulnerable for all he was made of obsidian.

Instead of answering him, Duessel took Knoll’s elbow in his hand. His fingers were callused from years of fighting, from drills with axes, swords, spears, lances, bows. His palm was warm, a scar running across the base from the bottom of his thumb to the top of his wrist. They both stilled.

“Knoll,” Duessel said. His voice was a low rumble. He didn’t move.

Knoll hesitantly set his hand on Duessel’s knee. It was his right one, that he’d injured a year and a half before, torn in a dismount during a small bandit problem on the border with Renais. He’d been unable to ride for almost eight months afterward while it healed. “Here?” Knoll asked, so softly he could barely hear himself.

“Here,” Duessel said. He took Knoll’s hand from his knee and lifted it to his lips.

“Oh,” Knoll replied. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. How had he not noticed? “Oh,” he said again, as Duessel leaned forward, and Knoll mirrored, drawn toward him, their individual gravities aligning.

“Oh,” he mumbled again, feeling stupid and blind, as his hand slid back to grab Duessel’s shoulder, the powerful muscle there, and they kissed. His words were lost in it, and he hung on, like he was drowning.

 

 

They hosted the treaty signing at the capital in the fall. Newly-crowned Divine Empress L’Arachel of Rausten, His Majesty Ephraim and Lady Eirika of Renais, Crown Prince Innes of Frelia, King Joshua and General Gerik of Jehanna, and a small cadre of merchants all arrived at Castle Grado. Knoll showed them around, the improvements they had made, while Duessel and Amelia revealed the newly fully functioning Grado army—minus three squadrons, all currently in Jehanna, and Cormag, presently in Frelia.

At the state dinner that night, the Imperial seat still conspicuously empty, no heir to sit it. Knoll and Ephraim sat on either side of it, the rest of their guests arrayed around it. Halfway through the meal, Ephraim sighed. Set down his tableware.

“It’s so different,” he said, leaning toward Knoll, around the empty place setting. “Grado seems...lighter. Happier. _Brighter_.” He looked sad. “I wish Lyon could be here to see it. This is what he always wanted.”

Knoll nodded, more than a little wistful. Lyon had always dreamed of a united Grado, flourishing. It wasn’t truly a haven _yet_ , but in another thirty years, it probably would be. Art and science were catching up to the advances of Grado magic. The army was a tightly run ship, and their Generals were so well-trained that Cormag was still in Frelia, assisting in restructuring their military. Trade was on the upswing. The shattered infrastructure Knoll had come home to, six years before, _functioned_ now. They even had almost worked running water to most of the capital. Low tariffs and high incentives for export were growing internal businesses, and they’d begun making enough growth in their crops to move beyond subsistence.

The catastrophe had come, but they were rebuilding, a little bit at a time. One day after another. Grado would live on. Grado would continue. Just like Lyon had wanted.

“Yes,” Knoll agreed. “It is what he always wanted.” He looked at the empty chair, and felt a pang in his chest. “But it pains me that he did not live to see it.”

Knoll would always want Lyon to have been there, with them, still. But in his own way, he had done no less for peace than everyone who had survived. The alliances that the war had formed, so strong, by bond and blood, had only happened because of Lyon. The wrong things for the right reasons had never fit anyone so well. “He would be happy, I think.”

Knoll looked to Ephraim then, and they shared a smile. It was knowing, and sad. They had something lost in common that haunted their footsteps. A love for a man long dead.

A memory. One they would carry on into the new world.

Footsteps approached, and Knoll turned, expecting a messenger or a servant. Instead, it was Duessel, soaking, his grey hair plastered to his scalp and his beard run flat. Knoll stood, pushing his chair back, hands flat on the tabletop, already on alert from his appearance. Duessel had been meant to ride out with two legions, headed towards the new coast. Instead—he was here. Duessel saluted Ephraim and L’Arachel first, then turned to do the same for Joshua and Innes on Knoll’s other side, and last bowed slightly to Knoll.

“Majesties,” he said, in greeting to all. “Friends,” he added, acknowledging a truth. “I am sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I must speak with Knoll for a moment. Somewhere warm, preferably.” He glanced down at his helm, held under his arm. “I rode straight back from near Bethroen, and I’m too old to catch a chill.”

Knoll gathered the skirts of his robe. If Duessel had pushed back alone from almost to Bethroen, a four hour ride, he must have had some desperate news to pass on. He had, after all, left early that afternoon on maneuvers after the trop inspection, and was not officially expected back for nearly two weeks. “Lord Ephraim, Lady Eirika,” Duessel continued, “You may wish to come as well. If you would.”

“Of course.” Eirika was out of her seat, L’Arachel following, and Ephraim stood after them. Knoll frowned, looking to Duessel, and tilted his head, asking a silent question of the other man. _Bad news_?

Duessel grinned, and Knoll felt his worries evaporate. From Duessel, strong staid and serious, a smile of that sort was a rare expression indeed. He was frowning more often than not, so this truly did have to be something perhaps— _tremendous_. Curious and reservedly hopeful, Knoll followed Duessel back into the kitchens, baking with heat from the ovens and cook-fires, as he went to stand by one roasting a boar, taking a proffered cloth from a cook to wipe down his face and hair, mopping the worst of his armor free of water.

“Good news?” Eirika asked, hopefully. “Knoll, you seem—worried.”

“Good news,” Duessel agreed. He set one armored hand on Knoll’s shoulder. “Knoll. They found her.” Knoll took in a sharp breath. Eirika looked between them, her brow tight. Ephraim frowned, crossed his arms. “In a small monastery, in Rausten.”

“ _Who_?” L’Arachel asked, grabbing at Eirika’s elbow.

Duessel explained, “Emperor Vigarde had a younger sister. Lyon’s aunt. She was illegitimate, the daughter of his father’s mistress. I knew her as a small child; she was born when he and I were already men grown. She’s now about Amelia’s age. When Vigarde’s father’s health began to fail and it was clear Vigarde would have to take the throne, she was sent away anonymously. I took her to the border myself.”

“As you know, during reconstruction, no cousins came forward to claim the throne.” Knoll explained. “Nobody wanted the mantle of Emperor of a shattered country.”

Ephraim snorted. “Who could blame them?” Renais had not been without its troubles, these last six years. Perhaps Ephraim understood more than anyone what a danger it would be to force someone to take the mantle who was unprepared.

Knoll continued: “A year ago, when we had given up hope of finding any surviving family willing to accept rule within the borders, Duessel mentioned this young woman to me—he had never brought it up sooner because he believed her dead. Frankly, he and I were both doubtful of her survival even at the time.” Vigarde’s illegitimate sister? Chances were, that when Duessel had taken her to the border, she had been killed. If not then, upon Lyon’s birth, Knoll had reasonably assumed any chance of challenge to the throne had been eliminated. “What records we were able to dig up stated she had been killed upon leaving Duessel’s company.”

“Vigarde and she were close,” Duessel said, still grinning. “He loved her dearly. I doubted he had supported that turn of events. Indeed—it has taken us almost a year, since the peace talks, to find what happened to her. She has lived anonymously as a nun in Rausten these thirty years.”

“Why has she not come forward before now?” Ephraim asked. “Can you even be sure it’s her?”

“Not yet, but I will know her if I see her. Believe me, Your Majesty—I know the Imperial family as well as you or Knoll do. I would never forget her. She is coming now, from Rausten, and should be here within the month.” The throne, empty since Lyon had breathed his last, gasping blood, would now be filled. Knoll and Duessel, never meant for rule, would be free. Vigarde’s sister would have to be married, and _fast_. She was almost no longer of an age to bear children. Someone would be found. The line would live on. But that was all second; that was the next step. First, they had found her. Now they would bring her home. Everything else, that would come after.

Knoll decided he did not care about decorum, about his friends judging him (not that Eirika and L’Arachel, who had come together, despite only the twins being asked, had any room to talk), or, in fact, about getting soaking wet. Not now, not when, finally, it had all finally worked out, at _last_.

He threw his arms around Duessel’s neck, and pulled the other man down, buried his face in Duessel’s skin. Duessel laughed into his hair, hands hot through the leather of his gloves against the small of Knoll’s back, and picked him up, swung him gently in the air. He heard L’Arachel say, _very_ softly, “Oh, goodness,” as Duessel sat him back down. His arm settled around Knoll’s waist, and he didn’t bother pulling it back.

“This,” Ephraim said, glancing between the two of them, and then to his sister, and then laughing “Is cause for celebration.”

Knoll was not a man of many vices. He lived a boring, sedate lifethat was mostly made up of working every waking moment and more. He woke up early in the morning, dealt with meetings and councils and moneylenders and arguing merchants and irascible nobles and difficult generals all day. He spent his evenings at solitary dinners, writing letters, approving ledgers. At night he stayed up so late he would get back even after Duessel had finished night rounds and was already dead asleep in their bed, and would slide in behind him quietly enough to avoid waking him. He got three or four hours of sleep a night. He ate little, sometimes less. He had only stopped dressing as an Imperial Mage when he’d begun to work in the House of Lords, because it was inappropriate. He avoided having his clothes replaced, hating to waste imperial treasury on it. He had not even taken an income in the last six years. He had simply relied on Grado Keep to allow him a roof over his head and food on his plate.

A celebration was almost antithetical to him.

“Why not,” Knoll said, leaning into Duessel’s side, unheeding of his armor or the water it was dripping onto his clothes, one hand set upon his shoulder. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was Duessel, and that was enough. “I think the vintage from the year Lyon was born is still in the cellars. I for one can’t think of a better time to drink it.”

“Then,” Ephraim said, “Let’s go get drunk and toast the Empress of Grado.”

Knoll waited until the other three left together to find the Imperial Sommelier, and then he turned to Duessel. Knoll cupped the other man’s cheeks, pulled him over, and kissed him—lingering, long, slow. He wanted to make it last.

“To Grado,” Duessel said, his still-wet beard scraping Knoll’s skin, smiling against his mouth, words lost in Knoll’s lips.

“To Grado,” Knoll agreed, and then added, “And a happy fucking retirement.”

And Duessel, once as still as the Obsidian for which he’d been named, threw his head back and laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr and twitter @jonphaedrus


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